Palestinians trying to pass through Israeli checkpoints in the Jordan Valley have been forced to take off their outer garments and submit to body searches, according to the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
Farmers who recently underwent the experience told WAFA that they had to wait for four hours until they were called by the soldiers and ordered to undress.
“I was feeling so dizzy that I stumbled while approaching the soldier who called me [for the body search],” Jihad Abu Hilal said.
“I couldn’t believe my ears when he ordered me to take off my outer garments,” he said, adding that the soldier ordered all of Abu Hilal’s companions to stand in line and do the same thing.
After that, he continued, the soldiers mixed together all the clothes and took the pile to a point some 200 meters away, where the farmers had to search for their own articles of clothing.
In a separate incident in the area, a university student on a visit to his parents tried, like many others, to find a bypass road to evade the procedure.
However, the soldiers noticed him and followed him in a jeep, then beat him and forced him to strip down, he told the agency.
Other witnesses recounted physical assaults on Palestinians, stressing that even women were subject to humiliation by the Israeli forces – Albawaba.com
